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A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders
Power in Numbers
January 26, 2024
Welcome to PIN’d - our weekly newsletter where we pin (lol, bear with us) the most important tech/startup news of the week for aspiring angels, vc’s, startup investors, founders, etc. Expect a new weekly roundup from us every Friday morning!
If you’re receiving this, it’s because you’ve signed up for our waitlist and/or for newsletter updates.
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📰 This week’s best news
VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has shifted focus to AI-powered consumer apps, leading to changes in its consumer team. General Partner Connie Chan, known for identifying emerging internet trends from China, has departed, and Anish Acharya now leads the team. Chan's move follows a distancing by U.S. VC firms from investments in China tech.
Expense management start-up Rex has laid off about 20% of its staff, or 282 employees. Michael Tannenbaum, COO of parent company Brex, is moving to the board, while Camilla Morais will be promoted to COO. CTO Cosmin Nicolaescu will become an adviser this summer.
The founders of Wise, Skype, and Songkick have raised $436 million for Plural Fund II, their new fund that aims to support technology startups in Europe. The fund will compete with established funds like Atomico, Balderton Capital, and Creandum, by focusing on founder-led companies. This is the second fund raised by the firm, just 18 months after the previous fund of $271 million.
Clerk, a startup that provides app developers with a suite of tools for managing and authenticating users, has raised $30 million in a Series B round led by CRV. Stripe, Andreessen Horowitz and Madrona also participated in the funding round. Clerk's total funding now stands at $55.5 million, which will be used to expand their services into authorization, determining user permissions rather than just their identity.
Flexport raised $260 million from Shopify after a year of poor performance. Shopify sold its logistics arm to Flexport in June 2023, retaining a 17% equity stake. The sale included Deliverr e-commerce fulfillment and last-mile delivery business, used to build Flexport's Revolution service. CEO Ryan Petersen announced the funding on X (formerly Twitter).
💰 Funding announcement highlights
ModernFi, a startup that offers deposit management solutions to community and regional banks based in New York, raised $18.7 million in a Series A round led by Canapi Ventures. Other investors also participated; Andreessen Horowitz, Remarkable Ventures, Huntington National Bank, First Horizon, and Regions.
Turquoise Health, a search engine that simplifies healthcare shopping, raised $30 million in a Series B funding round led by Adams Street Partners. Other investors include Yosemite, Andreessen Horowitz, and BoxGroup.
Bluesheets, a company providing automated workflows for processing financial data, has raised $6.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Illuminate Financial. Other participants included Antler Global, Insignia Ventures Partners, and 1982 Ventures.
Coana has raised $1.6 million in funding to improve its open-source software vulnerability detection capabilities. The funding round was led by Sequoia Capital, with Essence VC also participating.
EvenLabs, a startup developing software capable of generating voices in various languages, accents, and emotions, raised $80 million in a Series B funding round. The round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross. Other investors included Sequoia Capital, Smash Capital, SV Angel, BroadLight Capital, and Credo Ventures.
📚 Interesting reads of the week
Designed especially for VCs and PEs, this event calendar has all the important details you need - dates, locations and more - in one convenient place.
In this podcast, Steph Mui, founder of PIN (Power in Numbers), talks about how PIN lets you invest in start-ups even if you are an unaccredited investor.
Simon Schmincke from Creandum discusses the challenges facing fintechs in 2024, including IPOs, M&A, and the potential problems that AI could encounter.
Startup acquisitions can be profitable. Just look at Instagram by Meta in 2012, and Android by Google in 2005. But acquisitions can also fail due to overpricing, regulatory issues, scaling difficulties, or lack of strategic fit.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 has changed how startups deduct Research and Development (R&D) costs, requiring them to amortize the costs over five years instead of deducting them upfront. This has resulted in some startups receiving unsustainable tax bills, despite the return of profits.
💪 Tech Mafia of the week
Highlights:
💰 Most money raised: Xpeng Motors
🤑 Total money raised by the Alibaba Mafia: $32B
Weekly tech mafia leaderboard
Alibaba’s alumni network has built some amazing companies, so we took a look at the top companies.
The Alibaba Mafia takes the 9th spot, with 32 companies founded in total and $32 billion in total raised.
PS: Are you an Alibaba employee/alum interested in getting your community together to invest in the community (and earn carry/other benefits along the way)? Or are you a member of another community that you think would make for an amazing startup investment community? 😉
Learn more about us and sign up for the waitlist here.
📌 PIN tweet of the week
.@Benioff, founder of Salesforce, has a net worth of $9.9 billion.
Part of it is because of his savvy angel investments.
His strategic placements have diversified his portfolio into various sectors.
Here are some of his most notable startup investments:
🚀 Calm (valued at… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— PIN (@getpinxyz)
2:28 PM • Jan 23, 2024
💼 Who’s hiring in VC?
Looking to get into VC? Below are this week’s curated VC job openings.
G2 Venture Partners is looking for a Full Time Investor.
TCW is looking for a VC Analyst.
Erez Capital is looking for a Venture Partner.
NEO is looking for an Investment Associate.
📠 Fun fact of the week
Earning a graduate degree in aerospace/aeronautics increases one’s chances of achieving unicorn status (if one becomes a founder of a VC-backed startup) by a factor of 1.7x!
Want to learn more about investing in startups with your community through PIN’s platform? Simply reply to this email.
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